The lessons of antisemitism - By Waler Reich
The slaying of a guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington last week was a tragedy. But it's also a reminder of antisemitism's return.
That hatred had often erupted in the mass killings of Jews -- by the Crusaders in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, by the pogromists in Eastern Europe, and in many other places at many other times. But the Holocaust was so massive an orgy of violence -- so systematized and so organized by one of the most modern and cultured countries -- that antisemitism itself became, for the next few decades, a spent force.
Besides, after the Holocaust, it was embarrassing to be an antisemite in polite society. Who wants to be associated with something so widely condemned?
After a vacation of a few decades, antisemitism is back. That prejudice, which has been the norm of history, has returned. It's resurgent across Europe and proliferating wildly in the Middle East.
Some antisemites articulate the classic motifs: Jews conspire within countries and internationally to control money, media and governments. Some resuscitate the ancient canard that Jews ritually drain the blood of Gentile children to bake Passover matzo (or, in the case of some antisemites in the Arab world, to bake pastries for the Jewish holiday of Purim).
But in addition to the classic language and themes, other kinds of argumentation and language are being used, some new.
One argument involves the denial or minimization of the Holocaust. After all, if there was no Holocaust, or if only a small number of Jews were killed, there's little or nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, the Jewish claim that there was a Holocaust is presented as one more way the Jews keep the world in their thrall.
And even more actively, antisemites now speak in the language of anti-Zionism. They focus obsessively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignoring all other countries and zones of war. They pay no attention, and don't care about, suffering and human rights violations anywhere else -- in, for example, Chechnya, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Darfur, Burundi or the Democratic Republic of Congo (where some 5.4 million people have died during the last decade in conflicts involving widespread violence against civilians, including mass rapes).
But every incident at a checkpoint or in a clash in the West Bank or Gaza, real or fabricated, is highlighted, and Israel is condemned. Those antisemites who use the language of anti-Zionism always deny that they're antisemites. They're anti-Zionists. And anti-Zionism makes them good, they insist, not bad.
Certainly, one can be an anti-Zionist without being an antisemite. In fact, there are many who oppose Israeli policies and are against the idea of the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland or the very existence of Israel for reasons that have nothing to do with antisemitism.
But there are few, if any, antisemites who aren't also anti-Zionists. For them, anti-Zionism is primarily a way to express antisemitism without being labeled an antisemite. It's a cover.
In the version of antisemitism that's racing through the Arab Middle East, which evokes the tropes of world conspiracies and the ritual murder of Gentile children, there's little embarrassment even about the expression of absurd anti-Semitic claims -- or, in many cases, in the expression of murderous intent. The denial of the Holocaust is a staple of such discourse. So is the killing of all Jews: Israelis and others. For some, wiping out Israel would be enough. For others, killing Jews wherever they live is the goal.
At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the alleged killer was an old-style antisemite. He's a white supremacist from Maryland who hated blacks and, even more, hated Jews. And so he brought his rifle to an institution that memorializes and teaches about the killing of Jews. And he killed a black guard before being shot himself. Had he not been shot, he surely would have shot, and probably killed, others of any color and religion.
Following that violence, we have to mourn and remember the slain guard, Stephen T. Johns. And we have to wake up to the reality that antisemitism wasn't eradicated after the Holocaust.
What can we do about antisemitism's return? Certainly, we should continue trying to understand its origins, causes and persistence through history. We should continue to educate the public about it. We should strengthen our programs to teach children about it in schools.
But even more pressing is the necessity to stop, or at least minimize, antisemitism's deadly consequences.
Since anti-Semitic violence has been carried out for so long, most massively just a few decades ago, there's no reason to feel confident that it will simply stop. We don't have a good track record of learning from history. Repeatedly we make ourselves feel better by vowing ''never again'' about genocide, but somehow we find ourselves watching, or even turning away, as it happens yet again. But history, especially the Holocaust, can teach us some lessons about what has to be done when antisemitism morphs, as it so often has, from words to deeds.
We can learn to take seriously the reality and potential of antisemitism when it's expressed. We have to stop those who threaten to wipe out the Jews or the country in which almost half of them live, especially if they have, or are readying, the means to do so. And we must be sure that Jews have a haven within which they can defend themselves.
When antisemitism rises, both in expression and in action, other evils, universal and destructive, invariably follow. So when antisemitism rises, all people -- Jews and Gentiles, whites and blacks, people of all races and religions -- should be alert and should do all they can to avert its consequences.
